Alright, I need a reality check from people who've done this. We're about to hire an agency to build our first proper website. It's not crazy complex, but we need about 8 pages and a portal for clients to log in and view documents. We've gotten three proposals so far, and the estimated timelines are wildly different. Is a web development timeline of 12 weeks for something like this reasonable, or is that too slow? I don't want to rush a bad product, but I also need to get us online.

I see this confusion all the time. The short answer is yes, 12 weeks is not only reasonable but often ideal for a quality result with a client portal. The long answer is that a good timeline isn't just about coding; it's baked into a proper process. You need a solid discovery phase to lock down specs, a thoughtful design stage with revisions, the actual build, rigorous testing (especially for logins), and a managed launch. Cutting any of these is risky. I wrote a whole article breaking down each phase and why it matters, which should give you the ammo to understand any proposal. You can read my detailed breakdown on the web development timeline.